SOURCE: Cunningham, Andrew. “Sir Thomas Browne and his Religion Medici: Reason, Nature, and Religion.” In Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, pp. 12-61. Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Cunningham explores the relationship between Browne's role as a physician and his contributions to the understanding of religion; also includes an overview of Browne's life and works, focusing in detail on his Religio Medici.

The Man, His Mind and His Brain

Sir Thomas Browne was the first to use the expression Religio Medici for the title of a book. Ever since its first publication in 1642 his little book has claimed an attention out of all proportion to its size. It made the religion of physicians an issue, and made Browne himself the most famous physician to have had a religion. It has in recent centuries generally been...